On Friday morning, we awoke to a calm, glassy sea. After the choppy, windy weather of the day before, this was a welcome site. As we were standing at our stateroom window, we saw penguins and a whale cruising alongside us.

As we were finishing breakfast, our Expedition Leader, Olivia, came on the intercom system and said, “Good morning. I’m sorry to disturb you, but there are whales feeding in the water off the bow of the ship.” Of course, everyone went running to have a look, some people still in their pajamas, and there were three humpback whales swimming back and forth, spouting, breeching and submerging. So cool!

There are several scientists on board the ship, and there are usually a couple of science lectures each day. This morning, I attended one given by the penguin specialists and learned all about penguins and the research these women were doing to monitor the size and health of penguin colonies in the area.

At noon, we arrived at Mikkelsen Harbour and dropped anchor for the day. Chad and I got booked into two excursions. Our first was a hike on the island. We were on the first round of zodiacs, and we spent an hour walking around. There were remains of a whale, a whaling ship, and an old Argentine research hut. We also saw Weddell seals, an elephant seal, and so many gentoo penguins.

We kind of rushed to get back to the ship because we had a back-to-back booking for kayaking. We bounded up to our cabin to shed some layers and then went back to the launch deck to don dry suits and neoprene booties. We felt very fortunate to get a time slot for kayaking.

Back in September, Viking opened up the sign-up list for all of the excursions. I booked us into hikes and zodiac cruises and special ops boat cruises, but by the time I got to the kayak reservations, they were all booked up.  Man, was I bummed.

Fast forward to our second day on the ship. Despite not having reservations, we attended the kayak orientation and passed the physical test and got on the wait list. The lead kayak guy, Ramy, showed us the wait list and said that it was very long, so he didn’t think we would be able to get a booking.

The next day, as we were standing on the bow and passing through the English Strait, Chad struck up a conversation with Ramy and chat-chatted about I don’t know what. At the end of the conversation, Ramy asked for our room number. Guess who had a surprise kayak booking show up on their calendar? Now, I don’t know if it’s because Chad made a connection with Ramy or because our very first excursion got canceled or some combination of the two. Who cares? We got to go kayaking in Antarctica.

The kayaks were anchored on the far side of the island, so we took a zodiac over there and slipped over the side of the zodiac and into the kayak seats. (This was why we had to pass a physical test.) There was a lot of ice floating around, so our guide pulled a piece out of the sea and explained some physics to us. 

The ice started as snow. As the snow becomes more and more compacted, it turns to ice. The air in the snow becomes compressed and squeezed under pressure. As a result, when the ice melts, it makes little popping sounds as the air explodes out of the frozen bubbles. Then we paddled into an ice field and sat there quietly, listening to the little pops. It was like listening to a bowl of Rice Krispies!

Then we took a slow paddle around the island. Having done the hike earlier, it was cool to see the island from a different perspective. At the end of the tour, we power-paddled through a big ice field and met the zodiac on the other side. We hauled/flopped ourselves into the zodiac and zipped back to the ship.

We spent the evening with Jolie and Lucy with a cocktail in the Explorers’ Lounge and then dinner in one of the restaurants. After a very stimulating day of beautiful scenery, hiking among the penguins, and paddling on the water, I was in bed at 8:30 and sacked out by 8:45. We passed an uneventful night as the ship sailed to our next destination.